"Mind what you are about, Captain," said he, as soon as he could induce the man to stand still and listen to him. "That first buoy is a black one, and you want to leave it to port. If you keep on as you are holding now you will leave it to starboard, and that will run you hard and fast aground."
"Don't make much odds which way we go," whined Beardsley, holding fast to his elbow with one hand and to his shoulder with the other. "Just look what them Yankees is a doing!"
The captain became utterly disheartened when he saw that his plan for sinking the launch and making good his escape into the Inlet was going to end in failure, and Marcy did not blame him for it. The officer in command of the small boat, whoever he might be, was a determined and active fellow; his crew were picked men; his little craft was a "trotter," and he knew how to handle both of them. He had been sent out by one of the blockading squadron to patrol the coast and watch for just such vessels as the Hattie was, and although he had steam up all the while, he used his twenty-four muffled oars, twelve on a side, as his motive power; and this enabled him to slip along the coast without making the least sound to betray his presence. As luck would have it, he had not discovered Crooked Inlet. If he had, he would have lifted the buoys, and it might have led to extra watchfulness on the part of the blockading fleet. But he had discovered the Hattie and his actions proved that he did not mean to let her escape if he could help it.
CHAPTER VII.
THE MATE'S LUCKY SHOT.
"Just look what them Yankees is a doing now," repeated Captain Beardsley; and when Marcy turned his eyes from the warning buoy to the launch, he saw that the latter was scuttling rapidly out of harm's way; that her bow was swinging around so that she would pass by within less than a hundred feet of the schooner; that the oars had been dropped overboard, and were dragging alongside by the lanyards that were fastened to them; that some of the crew had arisen to their feet and stood facing the Hattie; and that the rest were busy with the howitzer in the bow.
"Heave to, or we'll cut you all to pieces!" shouted the officer in command; and Marcy could see him plainly now, for he stood erect in the stern-sheets with a boat-cloak around him. "We'll send canister and rifle balls into you next time, and they'll come so thick that they won't leave so much as a ratline of you. Heave to, I say!"
At this juncture a rifle or pistol shot, Marcy could not tell which it was, sounded from the schooner's quarter-deck, and the plucky officer was seen to throw his hands above his head, grasp wildly at the empty air for a moment, and then disappear over the side of the launch. In an instant all was confusion among the blue-jackets. The coxswain, who of course was left in command, shouted to the engineer to shut off steam, to the crew to drop their muskets and pick up their oars, and to the captain of the howitzer to cut loose with his load of canister.
"Lay down, everybody," cried Beardsley, who plainly heard all these orders; and suiting the action to the word, he quickly stretched himself upon the deck. Marcy had barely time to follow his example before the howitzer roared again, and the canister rattled through the rigging like hail, tearing holes in the canvas, splintering a mast here and a boom there, but never cutting a stay or halliard. If a topmast had gone by the board, or a sail come down by the run, the schooner would have been quite at the mercy of the launch; for the latter could have carried her by boarding, or taken a position astern and peppered the Hattie with shrapnel until Captain Beardsley would have been glad to surrender. The captain did not see how his vessel could escape being crippled, and he would have surrendered then and there if any one in the launch had called upon him to do so; but when he got upon his feet and saw that every rope held, and that the schooner was just on the point of entering her haven of refuge, he took heart again.
"Marcy, go aft and tell Morgan that that buoy ahead is a black one," said he, as soon as he had taken time to recover his wits. "Lay for'ard some of us and cut away this useless canvas. The Hattie ain't catched yet, doggone it all. I tell you, lads, it takes somebody besides a plodding, dollar-loving Yankee to get to windward of Lon Beardsley."